From the Manchester Union Leader:
MANCHESTER – While city leaders keep up their fight to restore federal funding for a street-level drug fighting program, the new city budget passed Tuesday will have taxpayers pick up the entire cost of an identical operation - including paying overtime for state troopers and state drug agents.
An eleventh-hour budget several aldermen presented Tuesday gave police $632,000 more than the $1.8 million hike the mayor proposed - including $291,890 for a special anti-drugs and guns initiative.
Manchester police asked for $291,890 to fund Operation Streetsweeper this year, but were told the money wasn't available after Congress slashed funds for all federally earmarked programs.
Police Chief John A. Jaskolka and Deputy Police Chief Glenn S. Leidemer said they were unaware the aldermen's budget set aside money for an identical initiative to make up for the lost federal funds until they got confirmation from city officials yesterday.
Leidemer said he had several discussions with the mayor's office and some alderman on how to make up the loss of Streetsweeper money. But he said neither he nor the chief received advance notice that the aldermen's budget contained funds to continue the program under another name. The budget takes effect in the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The new budget will pay for 10 additional police officers - which would increase the force to 225 - and requires the department to have 220 sworn officers on board before it can begin spending money for the anti-drugs and guns initiative, Jaskolka said.
Operation Streetsweeper is a multi-agency initiative primarily geared to fighting street-level drug trafficking that had been funded through grants by the U.S. Attorney's Office. It involves city officers partnering with state police narcotics investigators and agents with the Attorney General's Drug Task Force. Most of the money is used to pay overtime, drug-buy costs, arrest "round ups" and overtime for state laboratory staff to do drug testing.
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